Philip White Books

Spring 2015 History Book Bonanza: David McCullough, Erik Larson & Matthew Pearl

noreply@blogger.com (Philip White) — Fri, 13 Mar 2015 17:15:00 +0000

Do you devour history and historical fiction books? Then you're in for a feast in the next few months, as some of the most talented writers in these genres unveil their latest work.

First up is America's king of so-called "popular history" - which really means non-boring, highly readable accounts that are the opposite of dry academic tomes - David McCullough. Having given new life to pivotal figures such as John Adams and Harry Truman, McCullough has now turned his attention to the fathers of powered flight, the Wright brothers.

It's hard to imagine that it has been less than 120 years since Orville and Wilbur Wright started tinkering with old bicycle parts in their Dayton, Ohio workshop. Just seven years later, Orville took their fragile glider up to 20 feet above a North Carolina beach for 12 seconds, and the aerospace age was upon us. There have been many books dedicated to the topic but as ever, McCullough has dived deep into archival materials and emerged with fascinating new insights that will keep readers spellbound from page one of this engrossing biography.

We learn for the first time that any portrait of the Wright siblings is incomplete without the inclusion of Katharine, who spurred her brothers on to (pun alert) greater heights. As McCullough reaches his dotage, we should savor each and every volume he creates in his New England writing hut/garden shed, for when he departs there will be an immeasurable void for the millions of readers whom his biographies have touched.

Erik Larson is another American chronicler extraordinaire who's releasing a new book this spring. His previous offering, In the Garden of Beasts, focused on the US ambassador to Germany as he witnessed increasing Nazi violence in the run up to World War II. Now, with Dead Wake, Larson takes us back to the previous global conflict and the harrowing story of the Lusitania sinking. As with the Wright brothers, this is hardly a new or obscure topic for writers to tackle. And yet Larson transcends the material by taking us beyond geopolitical circumstances and humanizing the story.

For the first time, we're drawn into the lives of passengers and crew members, with the result of humanizing the well-known tale in a way that Larson fans know well. His trademark warts-and-all sketches give us three-dimensional characters who we can relate to as they sail ever closer to their doom, even as the US unknowingly drifts toward embroilment in World War I.

While Larson and McCullough stick to the realm of facts, Matthew Pearl uses actual people and events to fashion inspired historical fiction. His forthcoming book, The Last Bookaneer, sees Robert Louis Stevenson beavering away on his next novel on the island of Samoa. Little does he know that two book thieves are on their way to steal the manuscript and sell it before a new international copyright law outlaws such literary piracy.

Click here to finish reading via the Huffington Post.

A Political Apprenticeship: What Winston Churchill Taught Harry Truman

noreply@blogger.com (Philip White) — Wed, 10 Dec 2014 23:21:00 +0000

The two men couldn't have been more different. One was born in a magnificent palace, the other in a humble farmhouse. One had been in politics for 40 years, the other was a relative newcomer. One was lauded as his country's greatest Prime Minister. The other was derided as an accidental President.

And yet, as the Allies won World War Two and tried to make the peace, Winston Spencer Churchill and Harry [invented middle initial] S. Truman came together to check the advance of expansionist communism.

When the two first met in the grounds of the Cecilienhof Palace in Germany in July 1945, the overtones of the Potsdam Conference could not be more clear, or more menacing. A giant red star was daubed on the main lawn, and having sacrificed up to 20 million Soviet lives to repel the Wermacht on the Eastern Front, the ruthless Joseph Stalin was expecting a large slice of European pie as a reward.

Since well before he ran one of the most dogged and, ultimately, successful PR campaigns of his career to court Franklin Roosevelt's support in 1940 and 1941, Churchill had realized that for democracy to survive the Nazi assault America would have to be the senior partner, and his beloved Britain the junior. With FDR now gone, it would be up to Truman to prevent Stalin from consuming all of Eastern and Central Europe, and perhaps more.

The two men liked each other from the get go, though their initial impressions are amusingly different. Truman thought that they'd get on fine as long as Churchill didn't give him too much "soft soap" - i.e the lofty words and flattery that had wooed FDR. The British bulldog, who had taken the measure of every world leader since the early 1900s, believed Truman to be a man of immense determination. "He takes no notice of solid ground whatsoever," Churchill told his physician. "He just plants his foot down on it." The Prime Minister lifted his bulk a couple of inches into the air and crashed down on his private bathroom floor to illustrate his point.

If Churchill recognized before flying to Potsdam that he would need every ounce of Truman's influence as the head of the West's new superpower, it soon became clear just how much would depend on the Man from Missouri. Halfway through the conference, Churchill flew home to receive news of what he hoped would be victory in the General Election. Instead, his Conservative Party suffered the second worst defeat in its history, meaning Churchill would play no further part in the deliberations. In his stead went the new PM Clement Attlee, a man Churchill had once allegedly referred to as "a sheep in sheep's clothing." What good would a meek lamb be against the Soviet bear?

The answer was simple: not much. And neither did Truman win many concessions that favored the Western democracies around the Potsdam negotiating table. Stalin and his cronies got what they came for, except for Greece, which Churchill said he had "pulled from the fire on Christmas Day" during the war, but which would still be menaced by Communist revolutionaries for several years.

The Truman-Churchill story resumed in March 1946 in an unlikely venue: Truman's Presidential train car, the Ferdinand Magellan. As the locomotive sped from Washington to St. Louis, Truman's aides schooled Churchill at the poker table. But card games aside, it was Churchill who was the real teacher. The record of Churchill and Truman's conversation is unavailable, but as the American President is noted for his endless quest for knowledge (he supposedly read every book in his hometown library as a boy) and his British guest for his verbosity, it's likely that the political veteran gave more than a few pointers to his less experienced host.

Churchill was on his way to Truman's home state because the President had added a persuasive postscript to a speaking invitation from Franc Bullet McCluer, who presided over Westminster College in Fulton. Truman offered to introduce Churchill if he accepted, and the Leader of the Opposition recognized that he now had the perfect venue to air his grave concerns over the next great threat to world peace: Communism.

Contrary to his later denials issued when Churchill's "Sinews of Peace" speech whipped up a storm of criticism on both sides of the Atlantic, Truman certainly read and was influenced by what is now better known as "The Iron Curtain Speech." In it, Churchill spoke grimly of the iron curtain that had hewn Europe in two. On one side, Britain, France and a handful of countries were struggling to recover from the war, but their citizens enjoyed the freedoms of liberal democracy in their "cottage homes." Not so on the other side of the Iron Curtain, where the peoples of Central and Eastern Europe were subjected to Soviet tyranny. "This is certainly not the Liberated Europe we fought to build up. Nor is it one which contains the essentials of permanent peace," Churchill asserted in the Westminster College gym, as Truman looked on.

Click here to finish reading this story via The Huffington Post.

And don't forget to order my new book, Whistle Stop: How 31,000 Miles of Train Travel, 352 Speeches, and a Little Midwest Gumption Saved the Presidency of Harry Truman

The Secret Weapon That Helped Win the White House in 1948 & Establish The Political 'War Room'

noreply@blogger.com (Philip White) — Fri, 31 Oct 2014 03:13:00 +0000

On paper, it looked like Thomas E. Dewey was a shoo-in to win the 1948 election and return the Presidency to his Republican Party after 16 years of Democratic Party rule. He had come within two million votes of beating Franklin Roosevelt in 1944. Four years later it was not the iconic FDR he'd be facing or the wartime unity that he commanded, but Harry Truman, who was mired in misery at home and abroad. The Dixiecrats had splintered off in protest of Truman's bold civil rights program, while former VP Henry Wallace led the Progressives leftward with conciliatory foreign policy and plans to nationalize American industry.

Then there was the aftermath of postwar strikes that claimed millions of work days in 1946 and 1947 and isolated Truman from the unions after he took a hard line stance. The President almost didn't make it onto the ticket at all - the increasingly influential Americans for Democratic Action (ADA) and several big name Democrats wanted Dwight Eisenhower instead, a push only halted by Ike's refusal to run. And abroad Communism was on the march in China, and pushed Truman to the brink when the Soviets cut off West Berlin from food, medical supplies and coal with the Berlin Blockade. No wonder polls put Dewey up to 20 points ahead of the incumbent and almost three quarters of newspaper editors in a September 1948 survey backed the former New York Governor to take down Truman come election night.

And yet, somehow, Dewey lost the 1948 election and Truman claimed one the most unlikely victories in US history. So just how did the Man from Missouri pull it off? Well, there are a variety of factors, not least carefully targeted campaigning to black voters, farmers and blue collar workers, not to mention Truman's Herculean Whistle Stop Tour, which saw him give up to 16 speeches a day as he traveled 31,000 miles across the nation.

But a less obvious factor in Truman's win and Dewey's demise was the DNC Research Division. Holed up in small, airless offices above a building site in Washington's Dupont Circle, seven men beavered away day and night creating "Files of the Facts" - extensive dossiers on housing, civil rights, education and the other main planks of the Democratic platform. They then sent these to Truman's campaign team, who distilled them into bullet points for the President to review.

The real advantage that the seven journalists, city planners and policy experts provided wasn't macro level overviews, however, but localized details that any modern political "War Room" team would be proud of digging up. Using Works Progress Administration guides and local newspapers from across the country, the Research Division compiled talking points for each of the 352 places Truman spoke in on his June 'inspection tour' out West and the main Whistle Stop Tour in the autumn. As they were such a small group, the staffers were only ever working 48 hours ahead of Truman's train, which received new information when a runner went to the closet municipal airport to get new packets.

The specifics covered all the main election topics. Those who gathered in LA's Gilmore Stadium on September 23 found out that in 1940 only 5 percent of LA homes sold for more than $10,000, while eight years later, that figure had increased to 50 percent - evidence Truman used to call for inflation controls. A Winona, Minnesota audience that listened to the President on October 14 learned that, "Back in the Republican depression year of 1932, Minnesota farmers made less than quarter of a billion dollars. Last year, the income of Minnesota's farmers was a billion and a half dollars."

As well as feeding the President nitty gritty details, DNC Research Division head Bill Batt and his staff critiqued Truman's talks and provided suggestions for improvement. And it was Batt who pushed Truman's aide Clark Clifford to bend the President's ear on calling the "do-nothing" Congress back for a special summertime "Turnip Day" session in his Democratic Convention speech. And that's just what Truman did. The Congressman, spurred by Republican Robert Taft's assertion that "We're not going to give that fellow anything" passed no meaningful laws during this time, giving Truman even more ammunition for his accusation that the Republican-controlled legislative body was failing the country.

Click here to finish reading this article via Huffington Post UK.

Learn more about the role of the Research Division in my new book, Whistle Stop: How 31,000 Miles of Train Travel, 352 Speeches, and a Little Midwest Gumption Saved the Presidency of Harry Truman.

If you'd like to purchase a signed copy of Whistle Stop and/or my previous book, Our Supreme Task: How Winston Churchill's Iron Curtain Speech Defined the Cold War Alliance, please leave a comment below.

The Workaholic as President: How Harry Truman's Whistle Stop Work Ethic Won the 1948 Election

noreply@blogger.com (Philip White) — Wed, 22 Oct 2014 22:41:00 +0000

It has become fashionable of late to decry long working hours and claim that anyone who beavers away day and night must have some kind of problem or 'personality disorder.' For years, the European Union Working Time Directive has limited weekly work hours to 48, and in most EU member nations, people are well below that limit: France has a 35-hour work week and Sweden has experimented with a six-hour work day.

In the US, where a blue-collar work ethic has long been a part of the national consciousness, recent Presidents have come under fire for taking too much time off. A New York Times blog post claims that George W. Bush had 879 vacation days, including 77 trips to his Texas ranch. And Barack Obama's love of golf has become so controversial - heaven forbid that Presidents take holidays or exercise! - that there's even a dedicated website keeping track of how many rounds the President plays.

There are no such leisure luxuries when it comes to Presidential campaigns, however, at least with regard to Harry Truman's 1948 Whistle Stop Tour. Coming into the campaign, Truman was no stranger to logging mega miles as a politician. When he was an administrator in Missouri's Jackson County, he drove than 20,000 miles at his own expense looking at designs that would inspire a facelift for his county's courthouse in Independence, Missouri. Truman traveled "as far west as Denver, as far east as Brooklyn, and as far south as Baton Rouge, Louisiana," as one account puts it.

Then in fall 1944, as the unlikely running mate chosen by Franklin D. Roosevelt as he sought to extend his 12-year stay in the White House, Truman, who had by then served nine years in the US Senate, again became a road warrior. He made more than 200 speeches for the President and his efforts paid off, as FDR defeated Republican candidate Thomas E. Dewey (for more on the 1944 election, see Michael A. Davis's insightful Politics as Usual).

Less than a year later, Roosevelt was dead. And in the election year of 1948 it was Truman's turn to head the Democratic Presidential ticket, with Dewey again his main opponent. But the former New York Governor wasn't his only rival: J. Strom Thurmond threatened to steal Southern votes as head of the 'Dixiecrats' who opposed Truman's civil rights agenda. And the man who Truman had replaced as Vice President, Henry Wallace (who Truman had fired from his post of Secretary of Commerce for criticizing his unflinching policy toward Stalin's Soviet Union) was sure to win some liberal support as he ran for the Progressive Party.

Truman had alienated the powerful labor unions by smashing their post-World War II strikes, which cost the US economy billions of dollars and threatened to shut down the entire economy in 1945 to 1947, with 4.6 million workers walking out in 1946 alone. In the previous election, FDR had also lost ground in America's heartland, where many farmers turned their support to the Republican Party and helped shrink Roosevelt's victory margin to just over two million votes, by far his narrowest election win. Wall Street donors closed their check books for the man most writers, pundits and pollsters predicted would fall to Dewey come November, leading to Truman pleading for funds.

With so many challenges at home and the distraction of the Berlin Blockade abroad, what was Harry Truman to do? Concede the Democratic Party nomination and let someone else run? Not likely. Sit on his hands and let Dewey and his "Victory Special" train waltz to the White House? Not a chance. "I'm going to take Dewey like that!" Truman told Clark Clifford and the rest of his campaign team in a summertime strategy meeting, snapping his fingers for emphasis.

Truman had already traveled more than 9,000 miles on a June 1948 tour out west, giving over 100 speeches to voters he implored to vote for him instead of for what he called "the party of privilege." Now his advisors had planned 250 more talks, which would take Truman more than 22,000 additional miles as he went back and forth across America. His team worried about the physical toll of such an ambitious schedule on the President, who had suffered migraines and stomach issues from work-related stress in the past and whose age (64) put him at another disadvantage to the 46-year-old Dewey. "I'll be alright," Truman assured them with a trademark grin. "It's YOU I'm worried about."

Click here to finish reading this story via The Huffington Post.

Want to learn more? Then click here to order my new book, Whistle Stop: How 31,000 Miles of Train Travel, 352 Speeches, and a Little Midwest Gumption Saved the Presidency of Harry Truman.

If you'd like to purchase a signed copy of Whistle Stop and/or my previous book, Our Supreme Task, please leave a comment or e-mail me.

I Like Ike - Military Presidential Candidates From Eisenhower to Tom Cotton

noreply@blogger.com (Philip White) — Wed, 15 Oct 2014 20:26:00 +0000

In the election year of 1948, Republican Party bigwigs were feeling pretty pleased with themselves. President Harry Truman's Democratic Party was splintering, with Southern 'Dixiecrats' bolting in protest of Truman's civil rights agenda and Henry Wallace leading the Progressive Party leftward. The GOP was far ahead in fundraising, and Truman trailed Republican candidate Thomas E. Dewey by double digits in the polls, while the American press lauded Dewey and his 'dream ticket' running mate Earl Warren.

But as the Democrats assembled for their national convention in July 1948 one man had the power to change everything. To reignite the Democratic fire. To pull in undecided independents. To wipe the floor with Tom Dewey like he had with the Wermacht in World War II. That man was General Dwight. D. Eisenhower.

In the run up to D-Day in June 1944, Eisenhower was under unbelievable strain. As Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, the success or failure of the largest landing in military history would rest on the Kansan's broad shoulders. In his wonderful book The Guns at Last Light, Rick Atkinson reveals that Ike wasn't sleeping much, was smoking up to 80 Camel cigarettes a day and, as a result, couldn't shake the throat and respiratory infections that'd bothered him for months.

Though the 156,000 British, American and Canadian troops who stormed the beaches of Normandy endured heavy losses, they eventually prevailed and less than a year later, Hitler's would-be empire lay in ruins. Lauded as the mastermind of D-Day, Eisenhower served as military governor of the US Occupied Zone in Germany and then as US Army Chief of Staff. When he retired from military service in 1948, the five star General understandably wanted a quieter life away from the gaze of an adoring public, and thought he'd be getting one as the President of Columbia University.

This new, sedate role in academia have been enough for Eisenhower, but many Americans wanted their beloved war hero to pursue a different and more prestigious Presidency - one that would see him in the White House.

One of the many criticisms - a lot of them unfair - of Harry Truman was that he had little political experience before ascending to the highest office in the land after FDR's death in April 1945. He had only been Vice President 82 days, and had been in the Senate for nine years before Roosevelt chose him as his unlikely running mate - a short track record in Washington compared to other heirs apparent. Yet while Eisenhower had proved his political skill in working with Allied governments and tempestuous military figures like General George Patton, he had no background walking the corridors of power. So like his fellow Midwesterner Truman, who was from Missouri, Eisenhower was hardly a classic candidate for President.

This didn't deter the Republicans and Democrats from courting him in 1948. Before they nominated Dewey, the GOP figured that Ike could help them win an election for the first time since Herbert Hoover's victory in 1928. When he rebuffed them, the Democrats took their turn at persuading Ike to run in place of Truman, whose reputation still paled in comparison to that of his predecessor and who almost everyone - including First Lady Bess Truman - thought would lose come November. FDR's son James Roosevelt, tried to bring his family name and position of influence with California's Democratic organization to bear on Eisenhower. Powerful party men like New York mayor William O'Dwyer and Frank Hague of Jersey City then started petitioning the General. And labor chiefs Phil Murray of the CIO and Walter Reuther of the United Auto Workers, whose endorsements would guide millions of blue collar voters, also joined the call of duty.

It wasn't just establishment figures who wanted Ike to knock Truman aside, but also the youthful and increasingly popular Americans for Democratic Action (ADA). In June, another son of FDR, Elliot, drew cheers from an ADA rally in New York when he read a non-committal letter from Eisenhower that stated, "I am anxious to do my duty, but felt that it was my own problem to determine whether a sense of duty could call me into the political field." Though this was hardly a notice of acceptance, the ADA faithful drew hope from the fact that it wasn't a denial, either.

A month later, as delegates converged to select the Democratic Party candidate, ADA volunteers handed out hundreds of "I Like Ike" buttons. It seemed from the groundswell of sentiment in Philadelphia that all Eisenhower needed to do was say "yes" to become the Dem's nominee.

Click here to finish reading this article via the Huffington Post.

Want to order a signed copy of my new book, Whistle Stop: How 31,000 Miles of Train Travel, 352 Speeches, and a Little Midwest Gumption Saved the Presidency of Harry Truman? Then e-mail me or leave a comment on this post and I'll make it happen.

2014 Midterm Election's Billion Dollar Budget vs Harry Truman's 1948 Whistle Stop Shoestring

noreply@blogger.com (Philip White) — Fri, 10 Oct 2014 21:55:00 +0000

One billion dollars. That's how much candidates for the upcoming US midterm elections have raised for their House and Senate campaigns. A billion freaking dollars! And actually, according to figures released by the FEC and shared by Opensecrets.org, that's rounding down. With more than six weeks to go until election night, the total might jump up to $1.5 billion. That's what it takes to take candidates around their states in nice air conditioned RVs and private planes, and, of course, to film horrendous TV promos (though they'll be hard pressed to beat Jeff Wagner's ad from the 2013 Minneapolis mayoral race). In the 2012 Presidential election, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney spent almost $2 billion.

Rewind to 1948, before the days of super PACs, TV debates and, well, shirtless guys climbing out of lakes to drink coffee, and you'd find a completely different campaign cycle. Nobody likes to back a loser, and that's just what most journalists, politicos and pollsters thought President Harry Truman would be come election night.

Thrust into the White House by the untimely demise of Franklin Roosevelt two years before, Truman had helped the Allies win the war in the Pacific with a decision no leader should have to make. Then he squared his shoulders as peacetime problems marched toward him, overcoming millions of workdays lost to strikes and taking two giant steps forward in civil rights by ending pay discrimination for federal employees and desegregating the US Armed Forces.

And yet the Southern Democrats (aka Dixiecrats) had broken away in protest of this civil rights program, rallying around J. Strom Thurmond, the fiery former Governor of South Carolina who declared that "there's not enough troops in the Army to break down segregation." The Democratic Party also split to the left, with former Vice President Henry Wallace calling for a conciliatory stance toward Soviet Russia and nationalized industries as leader of the Progressive Party.

Meanwhile, the Republicans, out of power since FDR won the 1932 election, believed they would recapture the White House by putting debonair former New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey - who'd come closest of all GOP candidates to defeating FDR - and likable California Governor Earl Warren on a "dream ticket" that had the media fawning. In fact, more than two thirds of editors surveyed midway through the campaign believed Truman was done, a verdict backed up by Dewey's double digit polling leads.

So how bad did things get for Truman's finance team? Well, the President clambered on top of a chair at a White House fundraiser, and pleaded for contributions from a room of wealthy backers: "I am appealing for your help. Help to carry my message to the American people. We just haven't got the money to buy radio time. In Detroit on Labor Day we had to cut out one of the most important sections of my speech because we didn't have the money to stay on the air." The Chief Executive was certainly being truthful: despite Oklahoma Governor Roy Turner cutting a last minute check to radio networks so they'd broadcast Truman's Cadillac Square address, Truman had to edit his concluding remarks. But climbing on a chair to beg wasn't Presidential, his detractors scoffed, with Drew Pearson lamenting in his daily 'Washington Merry Go-Round' column that Truman looked "pathetic and alone."

The chair-top appeal did convince some donors to cough up, including two who gave $10,000 a piece on the spot. But the money didn't get the President very far, literally or figuratively. As his train car, the armor-plated Ferdinand Magellan, chugged into Oklahoma in the final days of September, Truman had reached the end of the line. Hearing that the Democratic National Committee was hard up, the railroads took a page from the radio network's playbook, demanding up front payment for fuel and other fees. The trouble was, the coffers were empty. For Truman to continue on his 31,000 mile Whistle Stop Tour that he had started in June and complete the rest of the planned 352 speeches (he gave up to 16 a day), it looked like he'd need an act of God.

Click here to read the rest of the post at The Huffington Post.

And don't forget to click here to pre-order your copy of Whistle Stop: How 31,000 Miles of Train Travel, 352 Speeches, and a Little Midwest Gumption Saved the Presidency of Harry Truman.

Want to buy a signed copy? Then e-mail me today and we'll figure it out.

I Hear That Train A-Comin': Cameron Should Follow Truman's Whistle Stop Lead With Early Campaigning

noreply@blogger.com (Philip White) — Thu, 10 Jul 2014 23:01:00 +0000

It appears from recent statements in the House of Commons and from Downing Street that the only vote David Cameron is concerned about is the Scottish independence referendum. While it's certainly an important matter that will help decide the future of the UK, Cameron should also be thinking about voters in another election battle: his own. While the next General Election is 10 months away, looking to the example of Harry Truman's 1948 Whistle Stop campaign as an example of how an embattled leader can get his message out to the electorate well before they head to the polls.

This time in 1948 was not kind to President Harry Truman. The Soviet Union started the Berlin Blockade, which cut off food, coal, medical supplies and all other road, rail and river traffic to East Berlin. The Communist takeover of China continued, while Communist forces also threatened to depose the Greek ruling party.

Things were little better back in the US. Franklin Roosevelt's former Vice President Henry Wallace leading a left-leaning breakaway of the Democratic Party on one of Truman's flanks, while the Southern Democrats (aka Dixiecrats') used the issue of states' rights to mask their racism as they too broke away from Truman because he supported civil rights. Later that year the States' Rights Democratic Party leader, Strom Thurmond, would outrageously declare that "there's not enough troops in the army to force the southern people to break down segregation and admit the nigger race into our swimming pools, our homes, and into our churches."

Truman could have waited until the autumn to launch his bid to beat Thurmond, Wallace and Republican candidate Thomas Dewey. After all, by mid October in his final election cycle, his predecessor, FDR, had only given two major speeches. But Truman was not beloved by the party faithful as Roosevelt had been, and wartime unity was a thing of the past. So the President used a speaking engagement at the University of California's Berkeley campus as an excuse to go on a "non-political inspection tour" of the Western United States. In fact, this "Shakedown Cruise" as one member of his new Research Division called it, certainly was political, with its aim being for Truman to share the main concepts of the Democratic platform from as many train platforms as possible.

Heading out in mid June, Truman's train rumbled across thousands of miles of track - 9,505, to be precise. He delivered 76 speeches in 18 states in just 15 days and while some of those were to large audiences, most were to small groups who had gathered at train stations in small towns. Truman would come out to the rear platform of his armor-plated living quarters - which included a bedroom, kitchen, bathroom and formal dining room - speak for a few minutes, shake a few hands, and then head on down the line.

During these brief speeches, Truman discussed conservation, reclamation and power projects in the West, the precarious situation in Germany, provision of low cost housing and government support for farmers. But he saved his most energetic words for the Republican-controlled 80th Congress, which he felt had blocked all of his party's major legislation just for the sake of obstruction. He warned that if people voted the same way as they had in the 1946 midterm elections, they would get more of the same inaction from another "do nothing Congress", which he claimed was "the worst we've ever had" (today's Democrats may have something to say about that.) Insulted, the man who many felt controlled that Congress, Ohio's Robert Taft (the son of former President William Howard Taft), complained that Truman was "blackguarding Congress at every whistle stop in the West." Rather than firing back at the man whose motto was "The duty of opposition is to oppose," the wily Truman embraced the "Whistle Stop" slogan, and took advantage of the outrage from the small towns he spoke in, whose residents were offended by Taft dismissing them as inconsequential.

Click here to keep reading this article via The Huffington Post.

Want the full story of Truman's Whistle Stop Tour and remarkable 1948 election victory?

Then Click here to buy the US version of my new book, Whistle Stop: How 31,000 Miles of Train Travel, 352 Speeches, and a Little Midwest Gumption Saved the Presidency of Harry Truman.

Live in the UK/Europe? Then click here to get a copy.

If you'd like a signed copy (to be dispatched in early November 2014) please e-mail me.

Harry Truman and the RAF Save West Berlin: Remembering the Airlift that Defied Communism

noreply@blogger.com (Philip White) — Tue, 08 Jul 2014 22:46:00 +0000

The fight for freedom in Europe did not end with the defeat of Adolf Hitler's Germany at the end of World War 2. As Winston Churchill correctly stated in his Sinews of Peace address (aka 'The Iron Curtain Speech') at Fulton, Missouri in 1946, Communism was the next great threat to democracy. And for Berliners in 1948, the tension between totalitarianism and democracy was at their doorstep, as Soviet Russia attempted to force French, British and American troops to quit the city of ruins so Communism could fill the void left by Fuhrer's fall.

In June 1948, Harry Truman was fighting for his political life. His party was split two ways - with Henry Wallace's Progressives veering to the far left, even as a bloc of Southern Democrats (aka the Dixiecrats) cried foul over Truman's bold civil rights proposals. Soon enough, the Republican Party would put forth a 'dream ticket' of Thomas Dewey, the New York Governor who had come closest of all GOP candidates to defeating FDR, and popular California Governor Earl Warren. American commentators gave Truman little chance, while Clare Boothe Luce, wife of Time proprietor Henry Luce, declared that the Man from Missouri was a "gone goose."

But Truman refused to accept that his goose was about to be cooked. He set off on a 9,000 mile train tour in the West which saw him speak to hundreds of thousands of Americans. This led to Truman's nemesis, Republican Senator Robert Taft, grumbling that Truman was "blackguarding Congress at every whistle stop." Rather than bristling at Taft's comment, Truman embraced it and now his campaign had a name - The Whistle Stop Tour.

So the President had plenty of domestic matters to occupy his mind as he concluded his Western 'non political' jaunt - which was, in fact, very political! - and returned to Washington DC. But he had to set inter-party fighting and his continued conflict with the Republican-controlled "do-nothing Congress" aside when disturbing news came through from Germany. In response to West Berlin issuing its own currency - a sign of fiscal freedom that Moscow fretted would spread into its tightly controlled zone - the Soviets had cut off road, rail and river traffic between Allied zones and the Red Army-occupied zone. This meant that the food, coal and medical supplies West Berliners needed to survive couldn't get through. It was clearly a Russian power play designed to force America and her partners to either abandon their efforts to restore democracy and a free economy in Berlin, or to quit the city altogether. If this happened, Stalin and his cronies would have a free hand and could fill the void left by Nazism with Communism, and the Cold War would've taken a decisive turn in Soviet Russia's favor.

Truman refused to yield. Taking advice from his military commanders and civilian advisors on the ground, he approved one of the biggest airborne relief campaigns in history: The Berlin Airlift. With all other transport routes cut off, American and British planes took to the skies over Berlin, delivering essentials to West Berliners and calling Stalin's bluff. Some aircraft also dropped sweets and as a result were soon dubbed "The Candy Bombers."

Click here to finish reading this story via The Huffington Post.

Want the full story of Truman's Whistle Stop Tour and remarkable 1948 election victory?

Then Click here to buy the US version of my new book, Whistle Stop: How 31,000 Miles of Train Travel, 352 Speeches, and a Little Midwest Gumption Saved the Presidency of Harry Truman.

Live in the UK/Europe? Then click here to get a copy.

If you'd like a signed copy (to be dispatched in early November 2014) please leave a comment on this blog post and I'll get back to you.

Big Wave Surfer Dave Kalama, CrossFit Athletes, Walkers Sweat for Cystic Fibrosis

noreply@blogger.com (Philip White) — Fri, 04 Jul 2014 22:45:00 +0000

When siblings Audrey and Jack DuCharme are healthy, they need a breathing treatment each day. Then there's the multiple inhaled medications, the doctors' checkups, and the fear that if they get a cold - which most of us would dismiss as a sniffle - it could put them in hospital, or at least require four daily treatments. This routine would be hard enough for an adult. Audrey is seven and Jack is five.

They're two of the 30,000 young people in the US who suffer from cystic fibrosis (CF), which also affects 10,000 people in the UK. This inherited disease is caused by a gene mutation which causes improper movement of water and salt in and out of cells, leading to mucus clogging the lungs and digestive system. When a CF patient gets bacteria in their lungs, it can be fatal and sometimes only a lung transplant can extend their life. CF can also lead to heart disease, diabetes and a host of other difficulties.

This month saw a host of fundraising events to raise money and awareness for CF. Big wave surfer Dave Kalama, who with Laird Hamilton pioneered tow surfing at Peahi (Jaws) and popularized standup paddleboarding, serves on the board for Pipeline to a Cure (as does Hamilton).

"With all the ocean has given me as a surfer, how can you not want to share and give back to such a worthy cause, that is so directly beneficial to people with cystic fibrosis?" Kalama said.

In a recent motivational talk for racers at the prestigious Carolina Cup standup paddleboard race, Kalama shared his worst race experience, when an illness soon before the 2009 Molokai race left him uncharacteristically underprepared and wanting to stop partway through the event. As shown, the video below, it was the thought of the CF kids who his charity work benefits that kept Kalama going, resolved that "you never, ever quit."

It's not only surfers who are standing up for CF sufferers. At Solution One CrossFit in Shawnee, Kansas, owner JR Kuchta and longtime member Jeremy Snyder organized a "CF for CF" event, which 3-time CrossFit Games champion Rich Froning helped promote by tweeting about it.

During the special charity WOD, CrossFitters paid $10 and then completed as many rounds of 50 air squats, 30 pushups and 15 pullups as they could in 12 minutes. As the athletes went through their paces earlier this month, Audrey and Jack DuCharme watched with their parents, Jim and Stephanie.

"It's great to see new families joining in to raise money for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation each year," Stephanie said. "We're so thankful for everyone's support, which is raising the profile of CF and prompting drug companies to come up with better treatments that have raised life expectancy from 34 to 41 in the past 10 years."

Click here to finish reading this story via The Huffington Post.

Winston Churchill, Putin's Russia and Ukraine: Timeless Lessons from the 'Iron Curtain Speech' 68 Years On

noreply@blogger.com (Philip White) — Fri, 07 Mar 2014 04:12:00 +0000

Can a speech made by a former Prime Minister 68 years ago still be relevant today? When we're talking about Winston Churchill's Sinews of Peace address (aka 'the Iron Curtain speech'), the answer is a resounding "yes."

68 years ago today, Churchill stood in the crowded Westminster College gymnasium in Fulton, Missouri and shared his concerns about Communism, becoming the first to call out Russia for its takeover of Eastern European nations, which he claimed were becoming little more than puppet police states taking their direction from Moscow.

Churchill was widely condemned for the Fulton address. Labor MPs petitioned Prime Minister Clement Attlee to censure Churchill in the Commons, which he didn't do. Churchill heard the same insults he had endured during his "wilderness" in the 1930s, when his warnings about Hitler earned him labels like "imperialist" and "old Tory." Stalin himself dismissed his former wartime summit partner as a "warmonger." Most people in Britain and the US at the time still saw the Soviet Union as a wartime ally, and many believed that Communism - which they little understood thanks to Russian propaganda - was a viable alternative to democracy. Above all, they would do anything to avoid yet another global conflict. So their derision is understandable, and yet misplaced.

Everything Churchill claimed about the ills of Communism was true, and then some. Beyond the eradication of democracy in Eastern Europe, the Red Army had broken its promises to leave Iran, jeopardizing British and American oil supply and trade (sound familiar?). Stalin demanded military bases in Turkey, and this nation, Greece and China were on the brink of succumbing to Communist takeover. In Korea, the Soviets regularly cut off energy supplies to democratic regions to show who was really in control. Churchill and other leaders were rightly concerned that Communism would fill the void left by Hitler's demise in Germany, and Communist Party membership in Italy and France was rising dramatically. The threat to liberty and freedom was very real, and only Churchill could enunciate it, despite his loss of 10 Downing Street in the calamitous 1946 General Election.

In addition to warning about Russian malfeasance at home and abroad, Churchill suggested how the Western democracies should respond, and what they should avoid. Simply put: strength good, weakness bad. In Churchill's words, "From what I have seen of our Russian friends and Allies during the war, I am convinced that there is nothing they admire so much as strength, and there is nothing for which they have less respect than for weakness, especially military weakness." This was not, as Churchill's critics asserted, a battle cry, but was rather just stating a fact: show weakness and Russia will take advantage. Show strength, and you will earn respect.

Fast forward 68 years and much has changed in Russia since Churchill's wakeup call in Missouri. And yet much remains the same. The so-called "elections" that keep Putin in power (the most recent falling, ironically, on the same date as Churchill's Fulton address) are little more than stagecraftexpertly managed by the ex KGB man's cronies to give the world the false impression that real democracy is reality in Russia. Politicians who oppose the Kremlin are imprisoned or thrown out of (one-horse) political 'races.' Journalists who dare to tell the truth are silenced. Even citizens on foreign soil are not safe if they air a dissenting voice - as Alexander Litvinenko found out to his cost . There is certainly choice in modern Russia - if you choose Putin and his brand of hyper-masculine nationalism, you thrive. If not, you wilt.

So the Cold War may be over, Communism may have receded and Putin may be less of a tyrant than his post-World War II predecessors. But Churchill's words still ring true.

Click here to keep reading this post via the Huffington Post

Tell It Like It Is, Dave: Cameron Calls Out the EU on Bureaucracy

noreply@blogger.com (Philip White) — Tue, 28 Jan 2014 22:52:00 +0000

For most of 2013, David Cameron seemingly couldn't please anyone. The "we want out of Europe" wing of the Conservative Party didn't think he'd done enough, even with the 2017 In/Out referendum pledge, to further their cause. The British economy sputtered like an old engine on a frigid morning. And the Tories slipped up in by-elections that many political commentators viewed as an indictment of Cameron's leadership.

Barely a month into 2014, and Cameron must feel like the storm clouds have finally cleared. Unemployment dropped to 7.1 percent and the number of people out of work fell by 167,000 since November - signs that the UK economy is creating jobs and at last pulling out of its recent slump. Such figures undermine Ed Miliband's vague, unsubstantiated claim that "life's getting harder" for the average Briton.

Certainly, last week's news that the House of Lords has sent the EU Referendum Bill back to the Commons for re-wording is less than ideal. But Cameron has proved his commitment to getting Britain a "better deal" in Europe by pushing the matter and, in practical terms, can do little more to satisfy Euroskeptics at this point.

Well, except maybe continuing to deliver speeches like last week's salvo at the World Economic Forum in Davos. There, Cameron offered re-assurance to his Get-Us-Out supporters that the "fight is not yet won." He then took the EU to task for it's cloying, go-slow bureaucracy, claiming that if Brussels workers aren't producing regulations for regulations' sake they feel like "they're not doing their job."

After revealing his hopes that fracking would lower energy bills and encourage employers to move jobs back to the UK ("reshoring") to take advantage of cheap energy, the Prime Minister then shared his fear that such potential benefits would be strangled by "burdensome, unjustified and premature regulatory burdens" from Brussels. Such over-regulation permeates every edict the EU issues, Cameron stated, as what Daniel Hannan has called "euro-apparatchiks" view any attempt to simplify policy as "an act of self-harm."

Regardless of what people think of fracking, it's hard to argue against the key premise of Dave's diatribe: that the EU is a bloated entity that exists merely to further its own over-reaching power.

Click here to finish reading this blog entry via The Huffington Post

Finishing a Book: Ditch the Ego, Act on the Criticism, Pick the Hills to Die On

noreply@blogger.com (Philip White) — Tue, 09 Jul 2013 21:25:00 +0000

Well, I’ve done it, and I’m pretty pleased with myself. I finally finished the remaining three chapters of my next book (Whistle Stop: How 31,000 Miles, 352 Speeches and 6 Bright Young Men Saved the Presidency of Harry Truman, due fall 2014 - watch this space). Well, kinda. In fact, what I really did was send the rest of the first draft to the two generous souls who are reviewing my manuscript.

Now for the fun part. And by fun, I mean death-to-the-ego-and-all-my-hopes-and-dreams. Unfortunately for me, some editors just want to watch the world burn.

You see, soon enough my inbox will light up with e-mails, containing page after page of edit afflicted prose. And with each new comment, redline and question, I will die a little. Or at least my ego will.

In a perfect, pain-free world, writers could just churn out a bunch of words, revise them ourselves and then fling them out to the unsuspecting public. Oh, wait, we can. I keep forgetting about self-publishing.

But alas, those of us who go the traditional route of talking an academic or trade press into publishing our portable monuments to how smart we think we are, are resigned to several months of editorial torture that we willingly brought upon ourselves.

Here are a few tips to get you through the process:

Accept That You’re Too Close

The trouble with you editing, re-editing, and re-re-editing your manuscript is that you’re wed to it. You breathe it. It wakes you up at odd times of the night, then scolds you for forgetting to put your tablet/notepad & pen beside the bed, you clot. No matter how objective you think you’re being, believe me, you’re not. That’s why you asked those poor saps to read it through with a wary eye and a warning finger before you subjected your editor to the horrors of a hundred thousand unbalanced, repeated, bloated words.

Click here to read the rest of this post via the blog of Boston University's The Historical Society.

A Light in the Darkness: Nine-Year-Old Boy Gathers Food, Donations for Victims of Moore, Oklahoma Tornado

noreply@blogger.com (Philip White) — Mon, 27 May 2013 01:43:00 +0000

It's hard for Brits to fathom the fear that accompanies living in Tornado Alley at this time of year. Each late spring and early summer, every thunderstorm has the potential for what weather forecasters call "tornadic activity." You get used to hurrying down to your basement with your kids, carrying inflatable mattresses, flashlights and food, hoping that the subterranean refuge will protect you as the banshee wail of the tornado sirens rings out.

And then Joplin happens. And now Moore. So much devastation. So much grief.

In the midst of this darkness comes the light of compassion. When nine-year-old Gavin Schroeder, a resident of Sulphur Springs in East Texas, saw the suffering in Moore (about 230 miles away) unfolding on the family TV, he wrote a list of things he'd like to do for the residents, including donating food, money and toys. Initially his father, Ken, was skeptical. After all, many charities were already underway with their own fundraising efforts. But the determined boy "didn't listen to me," Ken says, and kept pushing his parents to let him do his part.

Ken posted an image of his son's list on Facebook and within minutes began receiving messages, e-mails and texts from friends and family asking how they could help. Realizing that now was the time to act on Gavin's idea, Ken quickly set up a Facebook page for the More4Moore campaign, along with a PayPal account to raise money.

Within the first 24 hours donors had given over $750 (£500), and the Schroeder family had talked the local Lowe's (US equivalent of Homebase) into donating a pallet loaded with bottled water and hundreds of batteries. Wal-Mart also decided to pitch in and this Sunday, Ken's church will ask for a special offering.

Click here to finish reading this piece via the Huffington Post, where it was a featured blog of the day.

They May Take Our Lives, But They'll Never Take Our Espresso Beans

noreply@blogger.com (Philip White) — Sat, 11 May 2013 19:20:00 +0000

My latest ex-pat dispatch from the Land of the Free concerns an outrageous impingement of, well, freedom - at least for those people who, like myself, are confessed espresso addicts.

While perusing the website of The Atlantic (to which I subscribe) I noticed that one of the top ten posts was this little gem on potential government regulation...not of firearms, which is the most contentious topic in American politics, but of caffeine.

The writer does a fine job of explaining why the FDA is thinking of investigating and regulating caffeinated products. Now, my own tipple of choice is not one of the synthetic caffeine drinks that contain enough of the stuff to kill a horse, but rather good ol' java. My wife thinks I love my Gaggia Classic and MDF grinder a little too much, and she's probably right. But the ability to get a double-shot pick-me-up with freshly roasted beans (thanks, Kansas City's finest, the Roasterie) without leaving the house is both a path to Re-Caffeination Happy Land and a welcome excuse to get my eyes off my laptop screen. And, while my meager skills won't get me an invite to the World Barista Championships any time soon, I enjoy the process of grinding, tamping and sipping.

Yes, I am an aspiring espresso geek who is too spoiled to have any hope of surviving another Great Depression. But hey, everyone needs a hobby, right, and I like it that mine is an unregulated one. At least for now.

The first indicator I encountered that my age old right to drink espresso might be under threat (there must be a section of the Bill of Rights or US Constitution that covers this, surely) was on a trip to California last year. I ordered a couple of iced Americanos at a Starbucks in San Diego and when the green-aproned employee called my name, I went up to collect my drink and my wife's. A sign on the counter diverted my eyes away from the awaiting Caffeine Delivery Mechanism (henceforth, CDM). A promo for a new seasonal coffee? Maybe some manner of sugary temptation to get me back to the till? Nope. Instead a terrifyingly-worded warning that the beverage I was about to consume contained a compound "known to the [Nanny] State of California to cause cancer and reproductive toxicity."

A while ago, a libertarian friend warned me that the Obama administration "is coming for whatever you're into next." My day of reckoning was upon me.

Once safely back in Kansas, where such hyper-interventionist, Prop 65 silliness is thankfully not entertained, I forgot about the overbearing sign, at least once I'd e-mailed a pic of it and a mocking caption to a few friends who share my love of the Good Bean and share my suspicion of over-regulation.

But the article from Mr. Hamblin at The Atlantic has reopened my worry vault. I salute his balanced reporting, but fret over future regulation from the federal government. Will I have to obtain a license to buy a pound of espresso beans? Sign a waiver before I pay? Start some kind of speakeasy where my friends and family can enjoy a cup o' Joe on my now-illegal equipment away from the ever-watchful gaze of Big Brother at the National Central Bureau for the Synergized Prevention of Caffeinated Enjoyment and Merriment?

Click here to finish reading this article via The Huffington Post.

Want a signed copy of my book, Our Supreme Task? Then click here to e-mail me.

Agree with what I wrote? Disagree? Have a question? Then please leave a comment on my blog or on the HuffPo page.

The Winston Churchill Fiver, David Downing and the Berlin Blockade

noreply@blogger.com (Philip White) — Wed, 01 May 2013 00:41:00 +0000

I was delighted to read last week's news that from 2016, Winston Churchill will be the new face of the fiver (five pound note, about $7.50, if you're reading this in the US).

Now, my reaction isn't surprising, given that I wrote a book about Sir Winston. But it goes far beyond my appreciation for the man who led Britain through her darkest hour and into her finest.

The pound is a reminder to Brussels that Britain is still, in the best ways, the same country that Churchill gave his all to preserve. While the Tory Europhiles (step forward, Mr. Heseltine and co.) wanted to let the Euro technocrats consign our currency to the history books in favor of the gold-starred monstrosity of the Euro and Tony Blair would surely have done the same, several things stood in their way.

Chief among these was arguably Gordon Brown's finest political act: his Five Tests. These were conditions that the British economy had to meet before the then Chancellor of the Exchequer would permit Britain to join (see: capitulate to) the single currency. I'd like to believe that, despite his failings as Prime Brown is a man who understood the economic catastrophe that would be unleashed if he let Blair do away with the pound.

Because it's not just about getting to choose pictures to put on your country's notes and coins - though I believe that both American and Brits agree this is important, given the historical giants whose images these countries put on their currency (as did Jesus, and, ahem, John Maynard Keynes per this Daniel Hannan video).

In fact, the ability to make such decisions, to name your coins, to set their value, etc. is a key marker of how much influence a government and the people who elected them have over their country.

Certainly British author David Downing is aware of how important currency is not just in domestic affairs, but also on the world stage. In the wonderful conclusion to the John Russell series,Masaryk Station, Downing's protagonist ruminates on the currency reform that America, Britain and France initiate in their occupation zones within postwar Germany in 1948. Echoing Keynes, Russell tells one of his CIA handlers, "Whoever controls the currency runs the economy, and whoever controls the economy runs the country. If Washington leaves Berlin out, then they're handing it to the Russians."

And how did the Soviets respond to the currency reform? In the same manner any authoritarian regime reacts to a threat to its power and legitimacy - by attempting to reassert control in the most dramatic fashion possible. In the case of 1948, this took the shape of the Berlin Blockade, whereby Russia locked down all road, rail and water travel between its zone in the East and the British, French and American zones in the West. The goal was twofold: force the Western allies to abandon the currency change or quit Berlin. Thanks to the imagination and resolve of General Lucius Clay, George Marshall, Harry Truman, Clement Attlee and Ernest Bevin, they failed on both counts.

Click here to finish reading this article via The Huffington Post.

The End of European Sovereignty: Merkel's Superstate Plan

noreply@blogger.com (Philip White) — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 20:37:00 +0000

This isn't the first time I've taken issue with Angela Merkel's attempts to squash decision making in Britain, France, her native Germany and the rest of the EU nations. But as her latest comments come at a time when the fate of the Eurozone hangs in the balance like never before, I'll risk lapsing into (gasp!) self-plagiarism.

It has long been the tendency of rulers across the political spectrum to consolidate power during times of crisis - from Caesar to Napoleon to, more recently, FDR during the aftermath of the Great Depression. Sometimes, as during war, it is necessary for leaders to do this, such as with the nationalization of British and American industry during WW2.

In the case of Merkel, Mario Draghi and the other ideological champions of the ever-expanding EU, it is the fallout of the Greek and Cypriot fiscal meltdowns that has led to their renewed calls for Brussels to wrest yet more control from countries' own democratically-elected parliaments. Speaking in Berlin, the German Chancellor said:

"We need to be ready to accept that Europe has the last word in certain areas. Otherwise we won't be able to continue to build Europe."

Merkel then turned to fear to justify her latest petition for more Europe, less sovereignty, stating that "chaos" reigned and that EU member countries are "staring over the abyss."

Well of course you have to frighten people into believing that without your plan their lives will spiral into The Gorge of Eternal Peril if you want to impose your will on them. And it has long been the will of Merkel and her we-know-better-than-you-silly-little-European-electorates ilk to eradicate self-determination, freedom of choice and the other tenets of democracy, in favor of centralized, autocratic hegemony in the extraordinarily un-Parliamentary EU "Parliament."

This is a body, let us remember, that ignored Ireland's "No" vote on the ~~Lisbon~~ ~~Treaty~~ EU Constitution the first time and forced another ballot, into which it poured millions of Euros to ensure a "Yes" vote.(Uh huh, I have written that before).

A body that cared not a whit for the Irish people it compelled and duped when it imposed punitive terms upon them, and then on Greece in the wake of not-so-benevolent bailouts.

A body that oversaw the illegal seizure of private bank account holders' funds in Cyprus.

This is the type of institution Merkel wants to "build", as she knocks down democratic houses of Parliament and reinforces the walls of unaccountable, unchecked Fortress Brussels with the rubble.

But it's OK because Germany is, she's quick to remind us, the "largest economy" in Europe. And bigger, of course, always knows better. And just to ensure the continuation German fiscal dominance, the EU wants to cudgel the City of London with the EU Financial Transaction Tax, which recent estimates suggest would cost Britain $6 billion a year.

How long will the hard-working German people stand by and see Merkel pour their hard-earned wealth down the EU drain?

How long will the majority of left-leaning and mainstream media in the UK and US remain blindfolded to the folly of the Euro and the ill designs of the Brussels technocrats who control it?

How long will Britain stand idly by, thinking that holding an In/Out referendum in 2017 (newsflash, that's four years away!) is enough?

It is high time for The Politician Formerly Known as Frau Nein to hear again, this time in Dolby 7.1 surround sound, that resounding cry Margaret Thatcher uttered over the EU's domination of Europe: "No, No, No!"

Otherwise, it will not be "certain" areas of life in its member nations that the EU takes over, but all areas, as the United States of Europe becomes a hideous reality.

Boston Marathon 'Right Wing' Talk Does Left, Right and Center a Disservice

noreply@blogger.com (Philip White) — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 15:51:00 +0000

Does partisanship know no bounds? Is it impossible for liberals and conservatives to see ambiguity? Can we focus on healing the wounded, instead of hurling hurtful words at ideological 'opponents'?

In the wake of the Boston bombing, I'm afraid to say the answer to all three questions is "No."

As soon as the news broke of the awful events at the marathon, the blogosphere, Twitter and Facebook lit up with theories about who was to blame. Maybe it was North Korean, Syria or Iran. Perhaps an isolated, unstable person like James Holmes, the alleged Aurora shooter. But wait, it's Tax Day in the US, and Patriots' Day. The Tea Party is calling for lower taxes and less government. That's it! It must have been the work of subversive "right wing" forces! Draw line to Timothy McVeigh. Case closed.

Really? Has our determination to politicize, polarize and polemicize every aspect of American society gone this far? I know we're all into playing the blame game, of pointing fingers, of pushing responsibility onto anyone else but ourselves. But to start pointing fingers to either side of the political spectrum in the wake of such a tragedy is irresponsible and intellectually dishonest.

The next (il)logical leap for some commentators is to not only blame so-called "right wing extremists" but to finger Conservatism itself as being reactionary, hateful and destructive. If those who are right of center weren't directly responsible, they're still on the hook, according to some.New York Times writer Nicholas Kristof tweeted, "Explosion is a reminder that ATF needs a director. Shame on Senate Republicans for blocking apptment."

Now, the bomber and his or her co-conspirators may end up being tied to an extremist group. I'm not ruling that out, but my point is this knee-jerk "look left, look right, assign blame without thinking" approach has got to stop. By demonizing right or left, and/or seeking to label a political philosophy that we don't agree with as "evil" instead of wrong-headed, is profoundly destructive. As we bemoan gridlock in Washington (Nicholas Kristof was correct about that), shake our heads as we see Republicans' and Democrats' inability to pass a solid budget and our confidence level in Congress slips further, to 13%, why are we so determined to heap kindling on the partisan fire?

Click here to keep reading this article via The Huffington Post

Truman, Thatcher and Right to Work - A Legacy of Political Resolve

noreply@blogger.com (Philip White) — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 23:57:00 +0000

So much has been written about the late, great Margaret Thatcher this week that if you found this blog post via a search engine, I applaud your diligence! (and good evening to my regular readers). It's hard to encapsulate Thatcher's legacy in a single blog post, but here's one ex-pat Brit's attempt to write something new:

Before we get to The Grocer's Daughter, let's look in on 1945. In April of that year, Harry Truman, who had Vice President for just 82 days, took FDR's place in the White House. When he asked a grieving Eleanor Roosevelt if he could help in any way, she told him “Is there anything we can do for you? For you are the one in trouble now."

How right she was. Though Truman faced Communist expansionism abroad and made the tough decision to drop two atomic bombs on Japan, he had a host of problems at home. The doubts of the liberals who doubted his commitment to the progressive cause, threats of the Southern Democrats who despised his pro-civil rights stance and look-down-the-nose derision of the FDR loyalists who thought him an uneducated commoner were the least of them.

At the top of the list was labor unrest. Once the war was over, the AFL, CIO, UMW and other big unions wanted payback for their wartime efforts and for frozen wage increases. Their foils, the titans of industry, refused to meet these demands, and so the picketing began. Steel workers, miners, auto workers and more refused to man their posts, and all told 28.5 million work days were lost, the highest total in US history.

Truman called in A.F. Whitney, chief of the Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen, and Alvanley Johnston, head of the largest railway engineers' union, insisted that they put a stop to the strikes. They refused. "All right," the President told them. "I'm going to give you the gun."

And he did. Though Truman's negotiators brokered a settlement while he was at the podium, Truman told a joint session that he wanted power to draft the striking trainmen into the US Army. They'd have to obey their Commander in Chief, he reasoned. Though Truman later healed his rift with most union leaders and secured crucial labor backing to fuel his unlikely 1948 election win, he would not be held hostage by union chiefs, even when his opposition risked their wrath.

Fast forward to the late 1970s. Now it was Britain that was at the mercy of the trade unions, which provided funds for the ruling Labour Party and so had carte blanche at 10 Downing Street during the shaky Labour tenure of Harold Wilson and James Callaghan. Unlike Truman, these two men lacked the fortitude to say "no" to their backers, and so the Communist-influenced unions got exactly what they wanted.

Until Maggie. When she took over from Callaghan in May 1979, the union chiefs must have thought it'd be business as usual, even though she was a Conservative instead of a leftist puppet. When it became clear that the new Prime Minister wouldn't be intimidated by threats, the National Mine Workers strikes started, led by the fiery Marxist Arthur Scargill, who was determined to destroy Thatcher's government as his organization had Edward Heath's Tory administration in 1974.

But they underestimated the grit of the Iron Lady. She told the Conservative Party's 1922 Committee during the peak of 1984-1985 strikes: "We had to fight the enemy without in the Falklands. We always have to be aware of the enemy within, which is much more difficult to fight and more dangerous to liberty."

Despite the difficulty and danger of the situation, during which strikers battled riot police and Scargill disgraced his movement by failing to bring the Government's settlement offer before his workers (see this brilliant book), Thatcher prevailed. The type of strike that saw unions punish industrial suppliers was banned and the striking workers failed to bring the nation to its knees. Which was Scargill's aim all along. In the ensuing years, the British economy awakened from its late-70's slumber and ceased to be "sick man of Europe" (or, indeed, woman!).

And who is carrying the leadership torch of Truman and Thatcher today? None other than the bold state governors of the United States. Recognizing that people like Scargill and current UAW president Bob King are not defenders of workers' rights but rather the living embodiment of the "some are more equal than others" mentality of the ruling elite in Orwell's Animal Farm, Rick Snyder, Mitch Daniels and the governors of 22 other states have passed "right to work" legislation. Combined with bold tax cuts, such as those recently passed by Kansas governor Sam Brownback, such moves are spurring economic growth that's impossible in union-dominated states. No wonder so many people are relocating to low-tax areas.

For the good of taxpayers and business alike, unions cannot be allowed to hold the whip hand. To prevent this, the US President, British Prime Minister and American governors should channel the resolve, determination and courage of the grocer's daughter and the farmer's son: a Conservative and a Democrat who strode boldly where others feared to tread.

Peace Through Strength and David Cameron: Not a Love Story

noreply@blogger.com (Philip White) — Sat, 06 Apr 2013 16:09:00 +0000

This week I had the pleasure of reading a well-craftedWall Street Journal blog post by Pete Du Pont, in which he argues that President Barack Obama would do well to put Ronald Reagan's "peace through strength" mantra into practice.

But what of David Cameron and the British military? Surely a Conservative Prime Minister has preserved Britain as a global force to be reckoned with, even after the follies of his predecessor in Afghanistan and Iraq? Particularly a Conservative Prime Minister who just vocally advocated for the continuation of his nation's Trident nuclear deterrent?

Not so much. Despite the Trident statement and William Hague's belief that a strong, capable Army, Navy and Royal Air Force is necessary to protect us from traditional threats and combat the malevolence of terrorists, the Conservative Party seems to have either disregarded Reagan's theory or confused it for "strength through weakness." First there was the 8% cut in 2010, then the decommissioning of the HMS Ark Royal aircraft carrier, and the removal of the Desert Rats' tanks. By the time Cameron and co are up for reelection, they'll have pensioned off thousands of troops.

And the Prime Minister may not stop there if he returns to Number 10 Downing Street, recentlyrefusing to eliminate the possibility of further weakening British forces if he wins reelection in 2015.

Reagan's "peace through strength" stance (best expressed in this 1986 speech) is not some obscure American concept, but rather has its roots in Winston Churchill's 'Iron Curtain' address in 1946. In it, Churchill stated that Stalin and his cronies would only push Communism westward if they thought Britain and America were too weak to prevent it. "I am convinced," Churchill said, "that there is nothing they admire so much as strength, and there is nothing for which they have less respect than for weakness, especially military weakness."

Remember that the actual title of this talk was not the 'Iron Curtain' speech, but actually "The Sinews of Peace." Contrary to the claims of revisionist detractors, it was peace, not war, that Churchill wanted. And he knew that to withstand Communism, Britain must stand strong and stand with its "special relationship" partners - the United States, Canada, Australia et al - in good times and in ill.

Of course, the world of combat is not the same as it was under Churchill, Thatcher or even Blair. Military forces must be increasingly fast and mobile, drones are fast replacing manned fighter planes and the need for a large-scale ground invasion as in the Gulf War is, thankfully, receding.

Yet saber-rattling Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, strongman Russian President Vladimir Putin and even posturing North Korean President Kim Jong-Un will be merely encouraged to test our resolve by the sight of Britain's military spending and personnel cuts.

Click here to finish reading this article at Huffington Post UK.

To read my other Huffington Post entries, click here

Budget BS: The Sequester Hits History

noreply@blogger.com (Philip White) — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 19:21:00 +0000

When we think about the budget mess in Washington, it’s easy to focus on how it affects what’s now and what’s next. But what’s often overlooked is how budget cuts impact the study of the past. Or, how those cuts might shape history for current and future generations.

Harry S. Truman's farm home in Grandview, Missouri

In the past year, I’ve spent many a Saturday morning at the Harry S. Truman Museum and Library in Independence, Mo., merrily panning for research gold sifting through umpteen boxes and folders. Thankfully the museum and the researcher’s reading room/library will not be closing.

But as of March 24, Truman’s old white-board home in Independence (which he far preferred to the other White House he lived in, dubbing the latter, “the great white jail”) will be closed on national holidays, Sundays and Mondays. The Noland house across the street, which once belonged to Truman’s cousins, is being shuttered for good. And though visitors can still mosey around the grounds of the family farm in Grandview, Missouri, they’ll no longer be able to tour the house.

Click here to read the rest of this post on the blog of Boston University's The Historical Society.

And if you can, take a trip to the Truman Library and Museum. It's well worth it for anyone interested in the man who is, I'll wager, the most underrated US President. In the meantime, you could check out their website.

Can Small Town America Support Bookstores? An Owner’s Tale

noreply@blogger.com (Philip White) — Thu, 21 Mar 2013 23:55:00 +0000

The commonly accepted narrative about bookstores is that they’re doomed. People simply won’t go to bricks-and-mortar spaces to buy hardbacks and softcovers when they can pull up a web browser, click or tap a couple of times, and boom! Either an e-book is on their screen or that supposedly archaic bundle of paper is on its way.

But while certain undeniable facts—the closing of Borders and the rise of Amazon as the alpha dog in the bookselling industry among them—prove this impression to be true-ish, there are other signs that cast doubt on it. Some of these are factual and some anecdotal. In the case of the latter, Half Price Books is always jam packed when I go into one of the four Kansas City locations to buy more books I probably don’t need. Also, I recently read The Atlantic’s feature on Ann Patchett, who is not only bankrolling a bookstore in Nashville but also got a spot on the Colbert Report because of it. (I’m not jealous, honest. OK, yeah I am.) Third, I have spoken in four independent bookstores in the past few months and at all but one of my other events (libraries, community groups, etc.) indies provided the books.

The most recent of my bookstore talks was at Well Read in Fulton, Missouri, a two-story brick building on the very parade route that Winston Churchill took hours before he introduced the world to the terms “iron curtain” (he didn’t invent but popularized it) and “special relationship” in March 1946. Until last year, the store was somewhat disorganized, did little to no marketing and didn’t offer a space for reading or book events. All that has changed since Brian and Danielle Warren took over. I grabbed a few minutes with Brian to talk about book curating, the joy of sifting through boxes of old history books, and why two young, intelligent people took over a used bookshop in a small Midwestern town.

What is your background?

Danielle and I met in San Francisco and were both in the technology business for many years. She’s from Jefferson City [Missouri] and we moved back in May 2012 to change our lifestyle.

How did you find out about the bookstore opportunity?

The Fulton Sun ran a clever story in July last year, in which the first line read, “Kathryn Wade is selling a cat for $25,000.” My wife loves cats, so that got her hooked right away. We were looking to start or take over a business and as we both love books, it just seemed perfect.

Keep reading at Boston University's The Historical Society blog

Winston Churchill's Iron Curtain Speech: Still Relevant, 67 Years On

noreply@blogger.com (Philip White) — Sun, 10 Mar 2013 03:04:00 +0000

This week marks the 67th anniversary of Winston Churchill's 'Iron Curtain' address (actually named 'The Sinews of Peace'), which he called "the most important speech of my career". And he'd given one or two of those.

Churchill's speech in the unlikely venue of Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri, was panned at the time for blasting Soviet Russia, whom many in Britain and the US still considered an ally, for warning of the potential of World War Three and for calling out the divisions between the Communist East and democratic West. Of course, Churchill's illustration of the "iron curtain" (a term he made popular but did not invent) was later embodied in the defining symbol of the Cold War - the Berlin Wall. And you can hardly watch a news broadcast on foreign affairs without hearing Churchill's term for the bond between the US and the British Commonwealth, the "special relationship" (though quite how "special" it is right now is debatable.)

But is the speech still worth listening to and reading about, all these years later? After all, we'll be celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Berlin Wall next year and though Communism remains a force, it is hardly the global menace that Churchill spoke of. Despite these facts, I believe Churchill's "most important" speech should indeed be studied, and not merely as a historical relic. Here are a few reasons why:

1) Leadership

When he spoke in Fulton in March 1946, Churchill was no longer Prime Minister. The Conservative Party was punished for things that happened before Winston became head of a coalition government - not least the appeasement of Baldwin and Chamberlain and the poor standard of living many Britons had during their tenure. While the Tories campaigned on the strength of Churchill's war leadership, the Labour Party looked forward, creating a manifesto that addressed the postwar housing shortage, rebuilding wartime damage and, for good or for ill, extending socialized medicine.

But though he had lost his post of prime minister, Churchill's role of statesman was not over. He recognized that his stark warning about Communism would be unpopular, as did Harry Truman, who later disingenuously denied reading the speech before Churchill delivered it.

Yet Churchill recognized that to truly lead you must be willing to risk unpopularity, even ridicule, to tell hard truths. And what he said at Fulton - about the perils of expansionist Communism, about the need for the US, Britain and the rest of the English-speaking peoples to stand together in good times and in ill - was certainly truth. As predicted, Churchill was derided as an imperialist, an old Tory, and, by Stalin himself, as a warmonger. And yet, after braving hundreds of protesters yelling "GI Joe is home to stay, Winnie, Winnie, go away" to give another bold speech days later at New York's Waldorf Astoria hotel, Churchill stood his ground, stating that "I do not wish to withdraw or modify a single word."

Click here to read the rest of this article via the Huffington Post.

This Week Only: Get Signed Copy Of Our Supreme Task (story of Churchill's Iron Curtain Speech) for $10 + Postage

noreply@blogger.com (Philip White) — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 18:58:00 +0000

To celebrate the paperback release of Our Supreme Task - the story behind Winston Churchill's Iron Curtain speech and visit to Fulton, MO - I'n offering signed copies for just $10 + postage this week to anyone in the US.

If you'd like a signed hardback, just leave a comment on this blog post with your e-mail address and I will contact you to setup payment and delivery. If you have a problem with the comments (curse you, internet!), just e-mail me at alionintheheartland@gmail.com.

Copies are limited so don't delay.

Commemorating 67th Anniversary of Churchill's Iron Curtain Speech: Book Event in Fulton, MO

noreply@blogger.com (Philip White) — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 16:45:00 +0000

My (Belated) Top 5 Albums of 2012

noreply@blogger.com (Philip White) — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 00:08:00 +0000

2012 held some pleasant aural surprises, both from established and new artists. When I'm writing, I can only listen to music without words, or the lyrics start appearing on the page like some sort of mind-control conspiracy. And when I'm not writing, I like listening to all manner of things, from Johnny Cash to Frank Sinatra to EDM. Anyway, enough about preferred playlists, and on to the business at hand.

Here are my top five picks for the year just gone:

1) Of Monsters and Men - My Head is An Animal

This one smacked me upside the head. Folk pop from Iceland? Singing about furry paws, kings and lionhearts? Weird, check. Unexpected? Check. The best debut of 2012? Without a doubt. Love Nanna's lilting vocals, her call and return exchanges with Raggi, the horns and bells - basically, everything about this record. Why do we persist in glorifying miserable songs (from Nirvana, Radiohead, etc)? We need more musical joy, and with songs like Mountain Sound and Little Talks, Of Monsters and Men bring it.

2) BT - If the Stars are Eternal, So Are You and I

There are several classically trained electronic music pioneers, but none of them comes close to Mr. Brian Transeau, aka BT, for range, creativity and talent. I've been a BT fan since he released Ima in the mid 90s and defined the sound of trance. Since then he released the acclaimed score for the filmMonster and the equally cinematic This Binary Universe, a beautiful collection of sonic landscapes and electronic sound poems. IFSAESAYAI (how about that for an acronym?) is the heir to the latter, combining slowly building melodies with mournful guitar plucking and synth sweeps that Robert Moog would be proud of. This is the soundtrack to my next book.

3) Mumford and Sons - Babel (deluxe edition)

A test of a good band is how closely their live performances (vocals particularly) resemble the mastered, edited studio versions of their songs. Having driven four hours each way to see M&S in Nebraska this summer (and nearly dying after foolishly drifting off at the wheel at 2 am on the way home) and watching them on a baking hot night in Kansas City last summer, I can attest that Marcus Mumford and his band of merry banjo-plucking, bass-strumming, key-plonking men pass this assessment. The hoedown stormers (Whispers in the Dark, I Will Wait) are easy to like, but it's the depth of feeling in the slower songs (The Ghosts that We Knew, for example) that give this second LP longevity on my beloved Technics turntable. Oh, and their version of Simon & Garfunkel's The Boxer blows the original out of the water.

Read the full post by clicking here.